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The town I came from really had one industry, and that was furniture.

I loved experiencing city life in New York.

I grew up in a university town in eastern North Carolina - what's called Tobacco Road. It was very rural.

I grew up in Columbus, Indiana, a kind of industrial and farmland place.

My history has been to grow the roots as deeply as you can before going on to the next thing. That's why it took 10 years to go from Union Square Cafe to Gramercy Tavern, and another 10 years to go from Blue Smoke's first location to its second, and five to go from Shake Shack 1 to Shake Shack 2.

I grew up in the city. Both my mother and father were factory workers, and I loved the life in the 'metro.' Everybody saw me as a very urban guy. And I was.

We have a wonderful district with lots of fun little stores and companies and farms.

I grew up in a suburb of Ohio, in a small town, and I resonated with that small-town feeling where everybody knows your business.

My hometown is a very boring city. There isn't a lot of industry - there are a lot of trees. It's not like Beijing where the sky is always dark. In my city the sky is blue and the sun shines.

My grandparents back in Kentucky owned a tobacco farm. So, to make money in the summer, we could cut and chop and top and house and strip the tobacco.